Meeting of the Parliament 10 June 2026 [Draft]
I beg your pardon, Presiding Officer. I was just discovering how much some speeches improve when I remove my hearing aids.
Sadly, today, we have very much seen the debate that I expected. There has been some opportunistic partisanship dressed up as principled concern, and there has been a touch too much defensiveness on the other side, too. We should all recognise Peter Murrell’s crimes as his crimes, committed against the SNP, which has been betrayed both professionally and personally in a deplorable way. The party will feel pain about that, and it has a right to feel angry about it. That is very different from the view of Anas Sarwar, who stated in his opening speech that the SNP should own the shame of those crimes. I wonder whether he thinks that the victim owns the shame of any other type of crime. I thought that we all condemned that attitude.
SNP members have a right to feel anger, not shame, at the crimes committed against them, and they have a right to know that their party has put its finances and its governance on a sound footing; however, that is ultimately a matter for them. Throughout the reporting and debating of the scandal, there have been regular insinuations that the Scottish Government is implicated or that Peter Murrell embezzled money from the Government. If anyone has evidence of that, they should present it. If not, the innuendo is beneath contempt. Although Labour presents the debate as being about restoring public trust in politics, to encourage or even hint at such misleading insinuations can only further undermine trust.
Peter Murrell’s crimes have been investigated thoroughly. That investigation examined others in the SNP and the party itself, and the result was the establishment of his guilt, and no basis was found to bring charges against others. However, some of the response today amounts to a demand for an investigation into the victim of a crime. Is there more that should be looked at? Were there further crimes that have not yet been prosecuted? That is for the police, the prosecutors and the courts to consider, if there is evidence. Has there been a breach of party political rules and regulations? That is for the Electoral Commission to investigate—again, if there is evidence.
What is the case for a parliamentary inquiry? Mr Sarwar answers that it is the criminal justice process itself that should be investigated. If the justice committee of this Parliament wants to do that, it does not need the permission of the Parliament to do so, but it would need a clear basis for doing so. It does not hold parliamentary inquiries into every criminal prosecution, or even into every very high-profile criminal prosecution. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr Sarwar wants this one to be subject to a parliamentary inquiry explicitly because a rival political party is involved.